In the century that elapsed between. William Drummond and Allan Ramsay the people of Scotland had other things to think about than verse-making. Covenanter and Cavaliers, Priests and People, Kings and Commoners were at war. William of Orange landed in Britain, and peace, like a benediction, began to settle upon the land. Life became warmer and closer, and broke into gleams of social joy. Song is the soul of social life, and the dawn of the bright day of Scottish song began with Allan Ramsay.

All of the other poets of Scotland in the vanished centuries were of the aristocracy. They were either scholars, courtiers, nobles, priests or gentlemen of leisure. Their presence had graced the courts of the Stewarts, and the Stewarts had patronized and pensioned them. Allan Ramsay was the first poet of national eminence that had sprung from the common people, and it would have been well if all of the brilliant galaxy of Scottish poets that have succeeded him had imitated his method of living a worthy and honorable life as well as they have imitated his graceful and melodious versification and happy felicity of expression and fine choice of subjects. His life and character are too well known to need any lengthened reminder at this. time. A brief glance at the career of "honest Allan" is enough.

Born in Lanarkshire in 1686, we find him apprenticed to a wigmaker in 1700. An orphan and alone in the metropolis,

the cheery, sunny spirit of the lad attracted friends. Industrious and thrifty, he prospered in his calling. His early verses were short dramatic character sketches read before the members of the Easy Club, of which he was the Poet Laureate. The demand for copies of these productions became so great that Ramsay conceived the happy idea of issuing them in penny sheets. These met with so much favor that the poet was encouraged to engage in the bookselling business.

In 1720 his collected works were published, and the fortunate poet realized 400 guineas from the venture. Incited by his success, he began the publication of "The Tea Table Miscellany," a collection of songs and ballads by himself and others, which for many years met with much popular favor.

In 1725 his greatest work, "The Gentle Shepherd," appeared, and met with triumphant success. It is generally conceded to be the best pastoral poem in any language. From its publication Ramsay became a character of national renown. The great popularity which came to him never disturbed his fine mental equipoise. His habits of industry and thrift continued to the last. His domestic life was serene and beautiful. The care he took of the education of his children is admirable. The pride he showed in his "lassies" is fine. Writing to a friend in America, he says: "I have three daughters, and no ae waly dragle among them,

all fine lasses." His only misfortune was in the building of a theater in Edinburgh, for which he could not procure a license. He did not brood over his misfortune. He had enough left to build a fine house for himself on the Castle Hill, where he passed a serene old age. At the suggestion of many friends, he applied to his political friend, Lord President Forbes, to be "edged into some canny post or fat berth," but the Lord Advocate, then the chief man in the affairs of Scotland, had too many of the penniless sons of the gentry hunting after him to be able to provide for the national poet. Ramsay was probably the more comfortable and prosperous man of the two, and while it would have been a high honor to any Government to have had such a man in the public service, it is doubtful if it would have been of any real benefit to the poet himself. He died in the 73d year of his age, in his own house in the Castle Hill of Edinburgh. Near by is a fine colossal statue of the poet, erected by the people of Edinburgh in 1865. The first Scottish poet of the people, whose thoughts never wandered into foreign fields, his life and character and poetic genius are worthy of the warmest admiration.

ROBERT FERGUSSON.

In the same year that Allan Ramsay died there was a delicate boy attending school in Niddry's wynd. He passed Ramsay's bookshop every day, and looked in at the window and dreamed dreams. His father was an expert accountant from Aberdeen. His mother, Elizabeth Forbes, was a sweet-souled woman, who knew all the poetry in the Bible by heart. They had other children, but Robert Fergusson was the Joseph of the family. His parents were to make a minister of him. He was clever, and

at the age of 13 entered the University of St. Andrew's. The professors describe him as "a tricky callant, but a fine laddie for a' that." While his father lived he proceeded from class to class, but the sudden death of his father upset the plans for the ministry. His elder brother was at sea, his mother and sisters were poor and friendless, and the young collegian hastened back to Edinburgh. He had to take such employment as was nearest to him, and toiled night and day copying legal papers at a penny per page. The pressure of daily necessity held him there, and the furrow that he had fallen into deepened and darkened, and finally swallowed him up. He had begun writing verses at college, and in Edinburgh during the few short years of his sad life he poured forth a rich flood of Scottish verse which for originality of thought, purity of language, graphic portraiture of character and wealth of humor has not been surpassed by any Scottish poet, excepting Robert Burns.

His dark days were illumined by festive nights. The drudgery that wasted his delicate body did not seem to touch the fine spirit of the lad. The fascination of his conversation, the exquisite delicacy of his singing and reciting, his fund of anecdote, the childlike gayety and artlessness of his manner, combined with his marvelous abilities as a poet, made him the center of the Edinburgh social circles. It is pitiful, and yet natural, to think that the allurements of such social relaxations from the grim battle with heart-breaking poverty tended to increase the difficulty of emancipating himself from the low condition in which he was placed.

Thus passed the few days and nights of this singularly gifted boy-machinelike drudgery by day, and the "club,"

the theater, "Luckie Middlemas's" at night. How he managed to weave all the kaleidoscopic panorama of Edinburgh life and character into melodious verse and finish a masterpiece for every issue of Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine for several years is one of Nature's mysteries.

In 1773 his contributions to the Magazine were collected in a small volume, but it is doubtful if any benefit ever accrued to the poet from the publication. He sang on as the birds sing, careless who hears. Every hamlet in Scotland listened to his sweet voice, but no helding hand came out of the darkness to relieve the caged skylark. Surely, as Burns said, the hearts of the people of Edinburgh were of whinstone.

In his 23d year an accidental fall on a stairway had the effect of unsettling his wavering mental balance, and, lingering a few weeks in a state of semi-insanity, he died on October 16, 1774.

ROBERT BURNS.

It seems idle to allude to the history and achievements of the great mastersinger of all the centuries. His life and works are part of the common heritage of man, and are graven on the great heart of civilized humanity.

Scotsmen who have left the grand old land owe much to Burns. His songs have made them the freemen of the world. The splendor of his genius has shed such a halo around Scotland that her children come forth stamped with a native nobleness that commands the respect of the world. The monumental homage that has been paid to the memory of this man is marvelous. And yet it is not strange. In the qualities that attract and interest humanity, in his marvelous genius, in his irresistible manliness, he is incomparable. It has been re

marked that we might enumerate the names of Scotland's great men, and dwell with pride on the story of their achievements in arts, in science, in literature, in mechanism and in every department of human endeavor, but they would all pale beside the name of Robert Burns. How perfectly natural and yet how supremely artistic he is! "All passions in our frames of clay come crowding at his call." All Scotland lives in his songs. By the magic of his genius we see the honest men and bonnie lasses, the gay, green valleys, the hoary cliffs, the flash of her crystal waters, the sheen of her silvery lochs; we hear the rustle of her waving fields, the curfew calling in a cloud, the skylark warbling at heaven's gate, the evening hymn of the mellow waves, and, above all, we feel the deep, warm, kindly, honest Scottish heart beating in his matchless music, that will continue to echo along the arches of the centuries till Time itself shall wax old as doth a garment and the heavens be rolled together as a scroll.

MR. CARNEGIE'S REPLY TO HIS

CRITICS.

Speaking at an entertainment at Govan, September 7th, given in connection. with the opening of the Elder Library, Andrew Carnegie said they would have additional branch libraries from him whenever they complied with his conditions. He did not want, as had been recently suggested, to pauperize Scotland. He never gave anything for nothing. He required a community to support its library, and so it became the library of the people. He held that the community which was not willing to support a library was not fit to have one. Payment of the fees of Scottish students had not. increased the number of students; it had

increased the number of classes which each student was able to take. He called every principal of every university to witness, and they would all tell them that they were wonderfully surprised and greatly delighted, and that it would be a lasting good to Scotland that there were some people unable to pay fees who did not now have to do so. On Monday he would have all the principals of the Scottish universities at Skibo Castle. He got them to come every year, and this would be the third year they had come. It was impossible for men to sit down at table together without becoming friendly, and one of the greatest goods he had ever done to Scotland was that he had brought the heads of her universities together. They came as strangers, and they parted as friends. It would not do, in his opinion, however, to entrust them with more money. He said so frankly. It would be folly. He knew both the universities of America and Scotland. He said the American system was right. The Americans did not trust their money to a lot of professors and principals. They got bound together in set ways, and there was a class feeling about them which made it impossible to make reforms. They put business men at the head of the universities in America, to control the money, and they called the principals and professors to account for results. If he had his way he would introduce that system into Scottish universities. Perhaps he had said more upon that point than they cared to hear. It did not matter to him what people might say as to what he should or should not do with his money. He did not do anything for popular applause. If he did. he would deserve to get the slings and arrows right into his heart. But they never reached him, because he was per

fectly satisfied that there was not one of his critics who knew half as well as he did himself what he should do with the money which had been entrusted to him to administer. He would administer it to please himself.

SCOTSMEN'S BESETTING SIN.

Mr. Carnegie remarked that the library was a monument-not a dead monument, but a monument with a living soul in it-affectionately erected by a wife as a tribute to the husband she loved. The ceremony was exalted by the conditions which called it forth. Proceeding, he said he should like to say to the workmen of Govan that it had been his lifelong task to deal with the workingman of various countries. There was no question about the inherent qualities which the Scottish workman possessed. The American was said to be a Scotsman with his coat off, and in the more bracthey were in Scotland, without overtaxing climates of the Republic certainly men were able to accomplish more than ing their powers. The Scotsman in America, however, had proved himself equal to the best American. His ability, pluck and craftsmanship were undoubted. He had, with extreme pleasure, seen the workmen that day, and his heart went out to them.

Mr. Carnegie said he wished his countrymen would take to their hearts that the one blot upon the people of Scotland was that they often fell from true manhood through the use of intoxicating liquor. There was a saying in America that a totally abstaining Scotsman could not be beaten, and wherever a Scot has fallen it was, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, the result of intemperance. Every Scotsman at home or abroad had in his keeping part of the honor of Scotland, and Scotland having so much more

honor per man than other lands, it followed that every Scot carried a greater load of honor than the man of other lands. He wished that every word of his to workmen in Scotland would cause them to reflect upon that, and to resolve that henceforth they would never disgrace either themselves or the land that gave them birth. The only defect of the Scot, compared with the man of other lands, was that of intemperance, which, however, he rejoiced to know, was steadily decreasing.--Weekly Scotsman.

SONG TO THE TAY.
BY GEORGE TAYLOR.

O, bright are the treasures fond memory retains,

From gay fairy scenes of young life's happy hours,

And sweet are the pleasures that fondly remains,

When musing o'er pathways all covered with flowers;

O, fondly I dwell on the days of my childhood,

When chasing the bee, or the butterfly

gay,

And plucking the gowans on brae or in wildwood,

Or gathering shells on the shores of the Tay.

O, bright, flowing river! how oft when a

boy,

I played on thy bosom in wanton delight?

Or watched the wee sail of my favorite

toy,

HEADS OF FOREIGN EMBASSIES AT CONSTANTINOPLE From left to right-Commander Pansa, Italy; M. Constan France; Baron Calice Austria; Sir Nicholas O'Connor. England Baron Marschall von Bibestein Germany; M. Babst, First Secre tary, France; M. Zinowiew, Russia.

like flight?

How oft by thy waters in innocent glee,

I spent the bright hours of the long summer day?

question rests on the settlement of whether the outlying islands or the continental line, according to the treaty of 1825, shall constitute the limits of territory."